Mission: Substitute
by Ichigo Morino
Summary: When Iruka falls ill, leaving his class unattended, it's up to Kakashi and company to save the day!


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Disclaimer: Unfortunate of unfortunates, I do not own Naruto. Masashi Kishimoto does. Oh, but I'm perfectly fine with that, he's a genius. Though I honestly wouldn't mind if he tossed a character or two my way…

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Summary: When Iruka falls ill, leaving his class unattended, it's up to Kakashi and company to save the day! 

~ The summary was written for me by my good friend Quatrina Raberba. ^_^ She's awesome, many thanks go out to her! ~

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Author's note: I sat down one morning—while staying home from school one day—and wrote this in one go. Had I not been sick, this idea wouldn't have struck me. But it did, so here's what it produced. 

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Mission: Substitute

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By Ichigo Morino

3/24/03

Kakashi slowly made his way through the village, lazily shifting his eye this way and that to take in various early morning scenes. It was a warm morning, the sun bright but not in the least bit garish. Truly a perfect morning for some mission or other, and as Kakashi walked onto a bridge, he searched his mind for just that. A good mission is what he needed for those three.

"Did'ja hear about Iruka-sensei?" As two younger students neared him, one of their excited voices reached Kakashi's ears. 

"Yeah! Maybe he won't feel well enough to teach today." The other piped up, a hopeful note in his voice. "But it's all over the village by now, Raki called this morning and said so."

They passed him, but by the time they had stepped off the wooden bridge, Kakashi had long disappeared. 

The gray-haired Jounin applied a few good knocks onto the door, and after a period of shuffling from inside, the door was opened. "Yes…?" Iruka's voice couldn't even fake its normal tone, but fell miserably to the challenge and uttered a hoarse _yes_ instead. 

Kakashi stood outside the door, watching Iruka cling with one hand onto the doorframe, quite possibly to keep his knees from giving away under him.

"Kakashi…" This took a few seconds to register, then Iruka gave a slow blink, his mind giving a few turns in hope of finding within itself a possible reason for Kakashi to be there. "Is someone looking for me…?" There were pauses here and there between words, and occasionally somewhat of a labored breath. "Tell them I'll…be there in a few minutes…" 

Kakashi didn't give him a chance to invite him in or not to, and it happened to matter no longer. As soon as he stepped in, both Iruka's hand and knees decided to fail him and send him onto the floor. They didn't get that far. 

Kakashi had reached out to steady him and, since that wasn't sufficient for preventing a fall, ran an arm around him and another under him. Iruka shortly found himself set down on the couch. 

"I'll tell them you aren't feeling up to teaching today." Kakashi put it simply, looking down at Iruka through one half-opened eye. "They'll find someone to teach your class for today."

Iruka seemed to jump lightly at this, glazed eyes widening. "N-no. No. They're really raucous…uncontrollable. And it's my job to—" He was silenced by a string of his own dry coughing. 

Kakashi was suddenly hit with an idea, and his eye seemed to narrow even further in thought. "Take it easy, fix yourself some tea." The outlines of his mouth could vaguely be seen giving a sly grin under the navy cloth. "_I_ can teach your class."

Iruka's expression caused him to grin even further. "B-But—! You've got Naruto, Sas—!" His throat stopped him from talking any further, it was taking on an angry sting. 

"Oh, _they're_ not getting out of this either." Kakashi's one exposed eye seemed to wink. 

After finding a blanket for Iruka and setting the tea up for him himself, Kakashi waved, stepped out, and the door was brought to a close. 

***

"He's late _again_." Both Naruto and Sakura groaned this at a coordinated time, each one making their own impatient gesture. Sasuke continued to concentrate his attention on the river, he had been doing so for a little over half an hour.

"Yo." Kakashi's voice reached them before he presented himself before them, something of a sparkle in his eye. 

"Where were—!?" Naruto's question was cut short and Sakura fell silent as well, mouth partially open. 

"I found you a mission." At Kakashi's words, the three students perked their ears, Naruto proceeding to jump excitedly. 

"It should be interesting." He continued. "An opportunity for you three to learn something for once."

Whatever it was they were expecting, not one of them could possibly fathom substituting, and maybe it was better that they didn't.

***

Actually, Kakashi wasn't completely expecting this one either. Upon arrival, the classroom of rambunctious students that was to await them was fairly empty. Almost, save for three, barren. 

The three in question were going about their business. A girl in the very front fidgeted with her hands in her lap, an awfully worried look on her face. A few seats to the right of her, a nicely combed boy proceeded to shoot her glances every few minutes, thinking something along the lines of _"Teacher's pets are so cute, but she's such a teacher's pet she won't even look my way." _

Somewhere in the very back, obscured by a corner, one chubby boy had curled up and had moved onto snoring. None of them uttered a word, unless you counted mumbled _"mmm…rice balls" _from the aforementioned corner. 

"Whaaat?!" Naruto shouted in surprise. The corner boy seemed to be a heavy sleeper, however. 

Sasuke, having observed everything there was to observe around him, resumed to watching everything silently.

"Ah! That's horrible, why didn't the rest show up?" Sakura put on a concerned and incredulous face; her inner self had a very different opinion. _"Yes! Less brats to teach."_

"Oh…oh…um." The girl in the very front spoke up. "They all heard Iruka-sensei was sick." She glanced at Kakashi, then at each of the three Genin beside him. "So…so they all took the day off to mess around in the village…" She looked down at her hands, urging them to keep still. "Do you know…is Iruka-sensei ok? Is it bad?"

Kakashi smiled a bit under his mask, the concern in the girl's voice was evident, and by now he'd gotten a good look at the boy watching her. "He'll be just fine. He needed a day off." 

"Kakashi-sensei." Sakura turned to look up at him, followed by Naruto. "What do we do if there're only three students?" 

Kakashi didn't seem to give this much thought before answering, he had the answer all along. "We'll just have to round them up then."

***

A good part of the morning was spent running around inquiring after each missing student. Most parents jumped in surprise, brought their hands to their mouths, and explained how their wonderful children would never skip school even if the teacher was ill. To say the least, things didn't go as planned.

"Graaahh! None of these are home!" Naruto gave an angry poke to the sheet of paper in his hands. "And this list is _huge_!"

"'S not so bad." They had each been paired up with one of the three present students, and Naruto's luck had paired him with the formerly snoring tubby kid. "Those 're only a third." He slowly waddled down the street, motioning for Naruto to follow.

"That's _it_! Let's go get ramen!" Naruto followed, resisting the sudden urge to ditch both the list and the tubby boy. "We're put through some of the stupidest missions, but this one beats 'em all!"

Sakura was the first to return; she and Yukie had managed to bring all of the girls and two guys. The girls had decided to come once they saw Yukie's concerned face and her soft pleadings reached their ears. The guys, on the other hand, were both bored and smitten by a group of girls looking for, of all people, _them_.

Even so, this only amounted to seven, roughly a third of the class. Kakashi looked up from his book, placing it onto the desk and standing. He expected Sasuke to be next, and so he was. Yukie's admirer and himself had found a good number of students, most of which had been tempted by the sound of a substitute to pester.

Naruto and his pair didn't return until later. They showed up with two, one of which was holding a half-eaten rice ball. It had been the tubby kid's idea, and Naruto agreed it was quite possibly the only way to get someone to come along with them. Despite all of that, they were disappointed to realize only two were keen on rice balls. They should've gone for ramen.

It wasn't much longer after they were seated that Kakashi discovered a paper airplane wedged in his hair. Naruto's howls of laughter were cut short when an immense paper ball—a _wet_ paper ball—smacked him upside the head. He was livid.

Sakura's shouts for quiet were gone unnoticed, and maybe for the better, she was one of the few to remain unscathed. Sasuke skillfully got a few to fall silent, abruptly silent, but even he could only hold out for so long. If ever in Leaf Village had a substitute seen disaster, it fell a few leagues short of what took place in Iruka's classroom. And to think, they were missing ten students.

***

"You should be glad you only have three to look after." Iruka was starting to feel better, much better. The sight of a mangled Kakashi, paper planes and wads sticking out of his hair, could cheer anyone up to the verge of laughter. 

Kakashi removed one last spitball from atop his head, running his hand through the gray mass in search of any more. "I am." Having found no more paper to remove, he turned his attention to the cup of tea in his hands.

~ **_Owari _**~

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Alas, a bit more author notes: Yeah, I should've thought about it and put Konohamaru and his cute little group in there. But I was sick, yeah… And I've got this thing with going back and messing with one shots once I've written them. Either way, I'm through. Pardon my rambles, it's late.


End file.
